Alerts such as weather alerts are provided to cell phone users using the government's wireless emergency alert system. An alert is generated and forwarded via cell phone carriers to a specific cell tower or towers in the alert area. All cell phones in communication with those towers then receive the alert. See, for example, the IPAWS WEA service.
Other alert systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,745,021 and 8,478,225 incorporated herein by this reference. Generally, information about the cell phone and/or cell phone user are known and stored such as the cell phone IP address, cell phone number, or the like (i.e., private data).
Various entities may wish to provide different kinds of alerts via an alert service such as the “Ping4” service (www.ping4.com). Example may include weather alerts, Amber alerts, traffic alerts, and the like as well as commercial entities wishing to offer users coupons, discounts, and the like via commercial alerts.
The users, however, may avoid registering with such services because of privacy concerns. That is, the user may not wish to divulge private data to the services delivering the alerts and/or the entity generating the alerts. Moreover, the service provider, were it in possession of such private data, would have to incur the costs associated with protecting the private data in accordance with applicable international, federal, and state laws.
As the cell phone market transitions from feature phones to smart phones, smart phones are able to connect to the internet either over the cell phone network or by using Wifi connectivity. Smart phones can run small software applications known as apps and, in addition, can be aware of the phone location through the use of the GPS chip, cell phone tower triangulation, or a WiFi network location mapping.
Smart phones can receive e-mails containing rich media information, but the email is not specific to the location where the phone is located.